Toshiba projects JPY950 billion loss for FY2016
Japan's Toshiba Corporation expects to report a consolidated net loss of JPY950 billion ($8.4 billion) for the 2016-2017 financial year, ending 31 March, according to unaudited results it released today. Last month, the company warned of a net loss for the full year of about JPY1 trillion.
The figures are projections only since the company's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata LLC, have refused to sign them off owing to discrepancies over losses at its US nuclear unit, Westinghouse Electric Company.
On 11 April, Toshiba reported a loss of JPY532 billion ($4.8 billion) for the first nine months of its 2016 financial year (April to December), up from a JPY479.4 billion loss recorded in the same period of FY2015. These figures were also released without the auditor's approval. At that time, Toshiba said it planned to announce its final earnings report for FY2016 in mid-May.
Westinghouse, which Toshiba bought in 2006, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 29 March to protect it from creditors while it undergoes restructuring. Toshiba warned in December last year that it might have to write off "several billion" dollars because of Westinghouse's purchase in 2015 of US construction firm CB&I Stone & Webster (S&W).
Westinghouse is constructing eight AP1000 pressurized water reactors - four in the USA (two each at Vogtle and Summer) and four in China (two each at Sanmen and Haiyang) - with S&W as its consortium partner. Both Toshiba and Westinghouse have stressed that the filing affects nuclear power projects in the USA only.
Toshiba president and CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa was quoted by Jiji Press as saying, "We will try our best to complete the auditing process appropriately and as soon as possible through cooperation with the auditor."
The company said today that, providing it can sell its computer chip business, it anticipates posting a net profit of JPY50 billion for fiscal year 2017-2018. In January, Toshiba announced the spin-off of its flash memory business into a separate company.
However, US-based Western Digital yesterday announced that several of its SanDisk subsidiaries have filed a request for arbitration through the International Chamber of Commerce related to three flash-memory joint ventures operated with Toshiba. The request seeks to stop Toshiba's sale of the operations without SanDisk's approval, arguing this would violate the joint venture agreement. The arbitration will take place in San Francisco, California.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News
